Have you ever wondered just exactly how lightning works,
or why the word “sanction” can mean both “to approve” and “to deny”?
How did Senators Harkin and Grassley vote on important bills last week? These
are the kinds of questions reference librarians get every day.

Last year our library participated in a pilot project
called InfoEyes. The project offered Internet-based reference to people who
logged in via the Internet. The software made it possible for the reference
librarian and the patron to talk to each other using microphones and the
Internet, or write notes to each other through text-chat. They could both look
at the same web pages, as the librarian searched for resources containing the
answer to the question asked. This type of reference service is becoming widely
used by universities.

Although this did not prove to be a big success, we
learned many interesting things from it, including the unhappy fact that the
software most universities use for on-line reference (Iowa and Iowa State among
them), called QuestionPoint, is not accessible with a screen reader. We also
learned that a different web program, iVocalize, works very well for all of
these functions.

Reference services have always been an important part of
public libraries, and we’ll be phasing in reference services here as well. In
the meantime, your local public library can offer you telephone-based reference
service. What does that mean? If you have a question of any kind, you can call
the reference desk and ask them to look up the answer. If they can’t find it
quickly, they will call you back.

University libraries can also offer you reference service
via e-mail or by phone. Use them when you’re looking for more in-depth answers
to your questions. If the result of your inquiry involves printed documents such
as magazine or journal articles or a book, we will be happy to transcribe them
for you upon request.

Your public library is also an excellent place to join a
book club. Several of our patrons routinely request that we record books for
them to read with their local book clubs. Often these book clubs make their
choices months in advance, which gives us time to get the recording done. It’s
a good place to meet your neighbors and talk about the books you love to read.
If getting to the library for local book discussion isn’t an option for you,
consider joining one of our telephone-based discussion groups.

Our book list for this issue features several titles
chosen by discussion groups. See pages 6 and 7 for some thought-provoking
reading!

To honor patrons who are one hundred years old or older,
the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS),
recently established the 102 Talking-Book Club. The 102 Club salutes remarkable
patrons who, at more than one hundred years of age, remain actively engaged in
reading. The 102 Club provides the opportunity to acknowledge their achievements
and the rewards of a life of reading and intellectual curiosity.

The Iowa Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
is joining in celebrating these patrons. Starting in September 2005, the Library
is establishing a new tradition of granting “First Choice Status” to all
centenarians who are active patrons. A patron with this priority status will not
have to wait for any book requested. This recognition will be ongoing. In the
future, 102 Club members will be among the first patrons to receive the new
digital talking-book players, which are designed to be readily accessible to our
oldest patrons.

Inductees into the inaugural Iowa 102 Club will be invited
to a ceremony where they will be presented with a certificate, letter, and pin
from NLS. If patrons are unable to attend the induction ceremony, materials will
be delivered to them directly by members of the library staff.

In honor of our centenarians, we offer the following books
with 100 in the title:

RC41994 100 Years, 100 Stories, by George
Burns.

RC37258, LT4650 Having Our Say: the Delany Sisters’
First 100 Years, by Sarah and A. Elizabeth Delany.

RC50431 The Century That Was: Reflections on the
Last One Hundred Years, edited by James C. Giblin.

RC57408 If I Live to Be One Hundred: Lessons from
the Centenarians, by Neenah Ellis.

The Library will host the second annual celebration of the
postal workers of Iowa on November 18, 2005. For the success of this year’s
event, we need your help. If you have a mail carrier or someone in the post
office who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to bring books to you,
please write a letter of nomination for that person and send it to us. Include
the nominee’s name, post office address, phone number, and details of why he
or she deserves recognition.

When the voice on the tape sounds high-pitched and rushed,
like chipmunks, this means the tape is running too fast. This rarely occurs
because of a mechanical problem in the player. First check the speed selectors.
Is the rear rocker pressed down to the left, and is the variable speed slider
pushed to the left side?

If the tape still runs fast, take it out and tap it gently
on its edge. When replacing the tape in the machine, push only on the two hard
corners of the cassette. Do not put your fingers over any of the openings in the
tape case; this can push the tape back in the case, causing it to be in the
wrong place when you close the cassette door and press play. If the tape is too
far back, it will run fast, producing that familiar chipmunk sound. ALVIN!!

On June 30, 2005, Karen Paloma retired after 28 years of
service with the Iowa Department for the Blind. A reception in Karen’s honor
was held in the assembly room that afternoon.

Karen is from Waterloo, where her parents owned a florist
shop. She often worked there while she was pursuing her degree at the University
of Northern Iowa. After college she worked in school libraries before coming to
IDB. Karen began as a Reader Advisor and subsequently held positions of tape
librarian, print librarian, volunteer coordinator, and director of the radio
reading program. For the last 15 years she has been an Instructional Materials
Center (IMC) librarian, providing students in kindergarten through college with
textbooks in alternative media.

After her retirement, Karen hopes to move with her husband
to Texas. She enjoys travel and would like to see the northeastern and
northwestern United States, as well as Europe. Visiting zoos is a pastime of
Karen’s, and she will probably visit several zoos in her travels. Two of her
favorites are Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and the Albuquerque Zoo.

Karen will be remembered as a consummate professional and
someone who was always willing to lend a hand. We wish her well in her
retirement!

The Machines Team - Pat Kokke, Niels Andersen

Niels and Pat maintain the inventory of cassette players,
issue and exchange machines for patrons, and oversee cleaning and repair of
returned players.

Deena Cross has moved from the Stacks team to the
Instructional Materials Center. She is the IMC Specialist, assisting the IMC
librarians, overseeing the Summer Reading Club, and aiding patrons with the OPAC
and the Career Resource Center.

Gail Stricker is now the IMC Librarian, filling Karen
Paloma’s position. Gail was a reader advisor for five and a half years. She
will be serving students in the first half of the alphabet, A-L.

Tim West has joined the Library staff as Digital Recording
Specialist. He will manage the construction and implementation of our in-house
recording studio, as well as plan for the conversion of at-home recording to
digital equipment.

Our new Circulation Supervisor, Randy Landgrebe, comes to
us from the Newton Public Library, where he was Adult Services Librarian. He and
his wife, Susanne, a nurse-practitioner in Colfax, have six children. Randy
enjoys coaching Little League Baseball and other outdoor activities.

Randy says what has impressed him most about our Library
is the commitment of all of our staff to providing the best possible service to
borrowers. He is very happy to have joined such a dedicated crew.

In the past four and a half years, what is the greatest
number of books that one patron has checked out?
7458 patrons borrowed at least one book.
2462 borrowed more than 100 books
553 borrowed more than 500 books
163 borrowed more than 1000 books
13 borrowed more than 2000 books
Second most books borrowed by one patron: 3091
Most books borrowed by one patron since January 2001: 4479

Several of the following titles were recorded
for the Perry Public Library book club. Others have been selected by our library’s
discussion groups. Choose one or several for yourself, and start a conversation!

The author was the fifth of seven children raised in
Kalona, Iowa, as a member of a strict Old Order Amish community, which
unyieldingly avoided all interaction with “the English” — everyone who
lived on the outside. Ruth’s life changed dramatically when she fell in love
with an outsider 15 years her senior. Worse, he was divorced, and wedding him
was equivalent to adultery in the eyes of the Amish. Nonfiction.

RCO14423The Sleeping Father, by Matthew Sharpe

Bernard Schwartz, a divorced dad of two teenagers,
inadvertently combines two incompatible antidepressant medications, goes into a
coma, has a stroke, and emerges with brain damage. His teenage son and daughter
inherit some money and decide to rehabilitate their father on their own.

RCO14186, LT6697Some Days There’s Pie, by Catherine Landis

Ruth elopes with Chuck as a way out of Summerville,
Tennessee. When Chuck “gets religion,” Ruth, cherishing freedom more than
safety, heads north. When Ruth faints from hunger at a North Carolina
five-and-dime, Rose, a feisty octogenarian reporter, rescues her, and a
friendship stronger than family ties unexpectedly blossoms.

RCO14142After Dark, by Beverly Barton

After fifteen years away from Noble’s Crossing, Alabama,
Johnny Mack Cahill receives an anonymous note stating: “Your son needs you.
Come home.” The enclosed newspaper article states that the boy’s mother is
suspected of murdering her former spouse. Johnny goes back to meet his son, find
out who sent the note, and find the murderer.

RCO14254, BR14366Crow Lake, by Mary Lawson

Education has always been the goal in Kate’s family, but
when her parents die, her two older brothers must sacrifice their plans so they
can keep the family together. Help from their rural community and the efforts of
the brothers make it possible for seven-year-old Kate and her baby sister to
remain in a household filled with love and humor. As an adult, however, Kate
looks back with a sense of tragedy and loss, not so much for her parents, but
for her brother Matt.

RCO13893, BR14084The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, by Brady Udall

Edgar Mint, the half-Apache, half-white narrator, is run
over by a mailman’s car, his head crushed. He recovers, only to be abandoned
by his family. The boy embarks on an odyssey through various institutions and
homes, including St. Divine’s hospital, then Willie Sherman’s, a horrific
school for Indian children, and finally is placed with a dysfunctional Mormon
family.

RC52291, LT7203Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich

Inspired by welfare reforms, the author explores surviving
on less than $8 per hour as an “unskilled” worker. Traveling across the
country, she takes on six jobs and lives anywhere she can afford. She concludes
that low-paying jobs without supportive public services are a disgrace to the
United States. Nonfiction.

RC41185, BR3167, LT984The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder

This Pulitzer Prize-winning 1927 novel surveys the lives
of five Peruvian travelers, victims of the collapse of a famous Incan bridge in
1714. Franciscan Brother Juniper, witness to the tragedy, weaves a story
revealing how these people came together on the bridge at that final moment. Was
it fate or was it an act of God?

RC50945, BRD18722, LT6507Evans Above, by Rhys Bowen

Evan Evans, the newly assigned constable for Llanfair,
North Wales, is searching for two missing hikers who are later discovered
murdered. While hunting for a possible serial killer, Evans also contends with
two local ladies who are vying for his attentions, as well as with competing
ministers’ wives.

RC51202, LT7182Wish You Well, by David Baldacci

In 1940 a happy family outing turns to tragedy when their
car overturns, killing the father and leaving the mother incapacitated. The two
children, Lou and Oz, take her to great-grandmother Louisa’s rural Virginia
home, where the New York City kids face difficult adjustments.

RCO14422, BRD21025Alice’s Tulips, by Sandra Dallas

Newlywed Alice’s husband, Charlie, an Iowa farmer, has
joined the Union Army and left her with his formidable mother. Alice writes to
her sister of quilting bees, farm life, and small-town customs. But no town is
too small for intrigue and treachery; when Alice is accused of murder, she
discovers her own hidden strengths.